


Crimson and Sunshine

by ChameleonCircuit



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 03:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13989120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChameleonCircuit/pseuds/ChameleonCircuit
Summary: Carmen tried to ignore the fact that she had met her soulmate. Having met him didn’t change anything. She was still the same independent woman who wanted to go far in her chosen career. She worked hard and she studied at night school and she had her life planned for herself, and her plans hadn't accounted for a soulmate.





	Crimson and Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tobeconspicuous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobeconspicuous/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAGGIE!!!!! I hope this even vaguely lives up to your expectations.
> 
> Huge thanks to barbaxcarisi for the beta :)

Carmen was running late. She absolutely knew she was running late. She was literally running as she wove her way through the halls of the DA’s office towards hers and Mr Barba’s office, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. It wasn’t that she thought she would be reprimanded, but simply that she prided herself on being the perfect assistant. She had never been late in her life.

 

As she round the corner to head towards her desk, she faltered, eyes catching on a flash of yellow on the floor. In her shock, she nearly dropped both hers and Barba’s coffees. Slowly, cautiously, she moved around her desk, placing the coffees down as she took her seat. She could hear voices behind Barba’s door, but even if she couldn’t, she would know not interrupt. The bright yellow trail was a fairly clear indicator.

 

She could feel her heart thrumming against her ribcage as her eyes raked over the footprints. For the first time in her life, she wondered what color her own were. As she loaded her computer to check the morning’s emails, she noticed the yellow slowly fading, the steps closest to the door disappearing first, with the others trailing behind. As the last footprint disappeared, she wondered just how long her soulmate had been here, and whether her footprints would still be visible when they got out. She knew she could get up, move around, ensure that they would be seen, but fear and uncertainty kept her stuck in her seat, her stomach bubbling with anxiety. There was always a chance her soulmate wasn’t bound to her.

 

Just a few moments later, she heard, “Yeah, sure, thanks Barba,” muttered from the other side of the door in a thick Staten Island accent, and her heart rate spiked.

 

As the door handle turned, it felt as though her heart stopped completely. Then, as the tall unfortunately mustachioed man left the office, shutting the door behind him, her heart thundered back to life, blood rushing past her ears, so deafening she felt sure the rest of the world could hear it too.

 

“Hey,” he said with a dimpled grin as he stuck his hand out. “I’m Dominick Carisi, Jr. Call me Sonny.”

 

She stared at him silently for long enough to make him hesitate, and she felt a flicker of both guilt and embarrassment as she realised she was behaving like an idiot.

 

“Carmen Noble,” she said quietly, returning his handshake before he could retract his hand. She felt a surge run through her body at the touch, but if he felt it too, he didn’t react.

 

“I’m new to SVU, so we’ll probably be dealing with each other a lot,” he said with a laugh, tossing his thumb over his shoulder towards Barba’s door. “I don’t think he likes me much.”

 

“Don’t take it personally. He doesn’t like anyone much,” she said, surprised at how smooth her own voice sounded. She threw him a smirk for good measure.

 

He laughed again, shaking his head with a slight roll of his eyes. The mustache was awful, but his smile could light up a room, and she suddenly found herself overlooking the imperfection.

 

“Well, it was lovely to meet you, Ms Noble.”

 

“Carmen.”

 

“Carmen,” he agreed, grinning from ear to ear.

 

Just hearing him say her name had her heart beating an unsteady rhythm, and she felt a flutter of shame inside her gut. She never thought she would be one to get giddy over the prospect of a soulmate, always preferring the idea of independence and solitude to being bound to someone for life, and yet here she was, nervous energy buzzing through her veins, all because a man with footprints as bright as the sun and a smile to match was standing in the same room as her, saying her name.

 

He glanced down, first at the floor in a move that almost looked shy, then to his phone, and she waited with bated breath for his reaction. When none came, she figured -- hoped -- that her footprints had faded. There was no real science behind how long they lasted. There had been reports of them lasting days for some people, and only lasting seconds for others, and while there were theories, there was no solid scientific reason for the differences.

 

“See you around,” he said quietly before heading out the door.

 

\--

 

Carmen tried to ignore the fact that she had met her soulmate. Having met him didn’t change anything. She was still the same independent woman who wanted to go far in her chosen career. She worked hard and she studied at night school and she had her life planned for herself, and her plans hadn't accounted for a soulmate. She’d been told how rare it was for people to find their soulmate, that usually if people saw their soulmates footprints they never found their actual soulmate because they got lost in a crowd, or went where they couldn’t be followed. Some people held onto the idea of soulmates, planning their entire lives around eventually meeting them. Carmen wasn’t romantic, and she found the whole idea frankly quite terrifying, so she had planned a life without one.

 

Suddenly, all that changed, and despite how hard she tried to ignore the pull of her heart -- her soul -- her thoughts kept coming back to Sonny Carisi. She dreamt of yellow footprints, of dimpled smiles, of terrible suits and an ill-suited mustache. She dreamt of a future she’d never thought she wanted, with a man she loved, and who loved her. She dreamt of a life with Sonny Carisi, and in her dreams she was happy. Properly, truly happy.

 

Every time he walked through her office, he flashed her his signature smile, made all the more appealing once he’d shaved his mustache. She watched his wardrobe slowly become nicer, almost as though he modeled them on her boss. She left him compliments, and he left her pastries and coffee. Every time he delivered her a new treat her heart skipped a literal beat, but she remained rooted to her seat every time he came by.

 

Sonny’s visits began to last longer over the course of the year. He told her stories of his sisters, his nieces, his parents, his childhood. He brought in his ma’s cooking, and his own cooking, and he gushed about his nonna’s recipes and how she taught him everything he knows. But he didn’t just talk, he listened too. He asked about her life, her family, her hopes, her dreams, and she found herself telling him everything about her life.

 

When something happened in her life, good or bad, he was the first person she wanted to tell. She would sit on it until she was practically bursting at the seams, until Sonny came to Barba’s office for some reason, and she could finally tell him her news.

 

Still, a year later, she hadn’t gone out of her way to make sure he saw her footprints. It took her a while to realise it was fear keeping her in her seat every time he came by. She knew there was a chance that she wasn’t his soulmate, and she’d rather live in ignorant bliss than know that the person that her soul was bound to was bound to another. There were times she thought he might know, based on a look, or a kind word, but he never brought it up directly, so she felt almost certain he hadn’t seen her footprints.

 

She would rather dream of what might be instead of what never could be.

 

\--

 

Carmen loved rare evenings when her boss had left early and she had time to complete her non-urgent to-do list without being interrupted. It was liberating, in a strange way, to have the entire office to herself.

 

At 6:00 pm on the dot she stood, bag ready on the edge of her desk, and moved around to check Barba had set the timer on his coffee machine for the next day. As she exited his office, locking the door behind her, she heard a sharp intake of breath.

 

“You.”

 

She’d know that voice anywhere. Detective Sonny Carisi, Staten Island accent prominent even in a whisper. She forced herself to turn and smile at him, trying to ignore the way her heart hammered against her ribs and her stomach twisted and churned. She was sure she knew what this meant, but the sudden fear of rejection had overwhelmed her.

 

“What can I do for you, Sonny?” She asked, voice wavering just slightly as she stepped away from the door towards the coat stand.

 

“It’s you,” he breathed out, eyes wide. She couldn’t read his expression.

 

“This is where I tend to be,” she said with a small laugh, shrugging her coat on as she moved towards her desk.

 

“Uh. Right. Yeah. Of course,” Sonny said, huffing out something that she supposed was meant to be a laugh, but sounded more like a sigh.

 

Carmen took a deep breath in before she turned to face him, bag now in hand. His lips were downturned, and despite having seen him in the middle of tough cases, she was sure this was the most broken he’d ever looked.

 

“Sonny,” she said quietly, taking a tentative step towards him, guilt mingling with her fear inside her stomach.

 

“Just had some files for Barba.” His voice was scratchy, but he smiled at her anyway as he held them out towards her.

 

She took the folder from him, placing it on her desk before moving closer towards him. “What color are they?”

 

“What?”

 

“My footprints. What color?”

 

Sonny hesitated for a moment, eyes darting toward the ground. “Crimson,” he said quietly, eyes still trained to the ground, presumably on the trail behind her.

 

“Yours are yellow,” she said softly, closing the distance between them enough that she could take his hand if she wanted to. And she really did want to.

 

“What?” His eyes snapped back up to hers, wide again, and glistening in the light.

 

“Your footprints are yellow.”

 

He stared at her for what felt like an eternity, eyes darting across her face, trying to read her. She tried to relax, tried to smile, but her stomach was in knots and her chest hurt and she felt utterly and entirely ridiculous.

 

Eventually he reached out and took her hand, and she felt herself relax just a little at the touch. “Why didn’t you say something?”

 

“I was scared,” she admitted quietly, voice barely above a whisper as she looked away.

 

“What of?” His voice was unbearably gentle as he gave her hand a squeeze.

 

“That you were bound to someone else, or that you wouldn’t feel the same even if you were bound to me.”

 

“Look at me.”

 

She took a slow, deep, deliberate breath in before she met his gaze, face as neutral as she could possibly manage given the war her insides had decided to wage.

 

“I’d have thought it was painfully obvious I had feelings for you despite not knowing our souls were linked.”

 

“I thought you were just being kind,” she said with a shrug, before adding. “A friend.”

 

“I mean, sure. But I don’t bring my mom’s pastries to just anyone.”

 

He was grinning now, and almost as though against her will, she felt her hand come up to cup his cheek, running her thumb across the divet in his skin. She wasn’t sure who closed the gap -- they had probably both moved in together -- but the second their lips met it was like a fire ignited in her body. She felt a comforting warmth spread from her chest and run through her veins, and as his hand ran down her back a trail of near-searing heat followed, and yet somehow it was enticing instead of painful.

 

Eventually they broke apart, both breathless, their foreheads still pressed together. She could feel his breath on her face, and laughed at the ridiculousness of it. If she’d done something the first time she saw him she could have had this for a year instead of agonizing over it almost constantly.

 

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” he whispered, shaking his head a little.

 

“I can’t believe I didn’t either.


End file.
